Guest Post: Fred on the Virtues of Clannishness

An alert reader turned me on to Fred on Everything, “Scurrilous commentary by Fred Reed.” You gotta admire Fred, he’s been there, done that, and has all sorts of considered opinions that are hard to dismiss. His bio, in which he says he’s crazy as a loon, begins with Would you trust this man with your daughter? If so, call. Crazy or not, unlike present company he’s learned in life. For that I give Fred a lot of credit.

Here’s his current post reblogged, a pretty un-PC take on diversity, or as he terms it, anti-togetherness.

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I tend to agree, but there are unpleasant side effects to clans, especially when it comes to those with wealth and power that other clans resent, envy, or both. And if you have power you have to apply it or it doesn’t mean anything. Applying power tends to create losers. Certain clans suffer more than others on a regular basis, something Fred doesn’t reckon with.

Fred thinks true diversity flourishes by leaving other groups alone, but that isn’t how society works, unfortunately. People tend to exploit their privileges to accumulate more. That’s where the trouble starts. The ideal state, says Fred, is not to “force people into association.” What sort of society would operate that way? Methinks Fred’s an anarchist at heart. I can dig peaceable anarchy. Distributed power. So where can I find some?

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Author: admin

I'm an ex-this-and-that, including software developer, computer graphics researcher, geospatial analyst, market manager, and technical writer, who now writes full-time when not reading, running a household, foraging for edible mushrooms, pushing progressive politics, or volunteering fsomewhere. I live near Boston with my wife, daughter, two cats and two old cars.
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The Daily (or whenever) Eruption

DIY Sex Ed: Wednesday 5/22/19

As a callow, overweight youth just having graduated from Tween University with a degree in Acne, I felt certain stirrings and had heard certain rumors about “doing it.” One day I repeated a crude joke from the playground to my mom and followed up with:

“What’s a cunt?”

“Well,” she said, drawing a breath and letting it out, “it’s part of the female anatomy and I’ll leave it at that. I think you and your father should have a little talk about the birds and the bees.”

Assuming she had prepped Dad to have “the talk,” I waited for it to happen, face flushing whenever we menfolk were by ourselves, but he never did tell me anything about reproductive rites. But it wasn’t long before a little book that I didn’t think had been in our library mysteriously appeared on my bedspread, called Facts of Life and Love for Teenagers by a nice lady whose name I forget.

So I did what any 13-year-old would do: I immediately hid the book, lest a friend come by and notice it, and furtively read it in bed by flashlight, looking for the good parts. There was, alas, no mention of birds or bees. It occurred to me that I had never witnessed birds doing it, and certainly not bees, but perhaps those two houseflies I remembered seeing united in flight were making whoopee. It must be a thing, I figured, recalling listening to Noel Coward croon “Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it” from our phonograph, but really, how do birds do it? Do they take off their feathers first? Do Bees lay aside their little stingers?